Plus, Poland’s role in the Holocaust relitigated
JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images
Former Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao (C) departs federal court in Seattle, Washington, on April 30, 2024. Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced today to four months in prison after he pleaded guilty to violating laws against money laundering.
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A new federal lawsuit filed on behalf of families of victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks accuses the crypto giant Binance of knowingly facilitating the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to U.S.-designated foreign terror organizations on an “industrial scale,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. The family members allege that Binance’s actions helped contribute to the deadly incursion in Israel that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages…
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — the controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed aid mechanism launched earlier this year to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza from a source other than the United Nations — announced on Monday that it would shut down. GHF said in a statement that it had distributed 187 million meals, marking a “successful completion of its emergency mission”…
Thomas Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, delivered an address last week saying claims that Poland was complicit in Nazis’ crimes against Jews in the country during the Holocaust are a “grotesque falsehood,” which he likened to a “blood libel against the Polish people and Polish nation,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports. The remarks from Rose, a former publisher of The Jerusalem Post, have reignited a heated debate about whether Poland bears responsibility for the country’s treatment of Jews during World War II — or if the country had itself fallen victim to the Nazis…
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch visited Park East Synagogue on Shabbat, days after antisemitic demonstrators gathered outside the Manhattan synagogue to protest an event promoting immigration to Israel. Tisch told congregants that the NYPD “fell short” in ensuring people could “easily enter and leave shul,” according to a report from the Shabbat service…
The Pentagon is investigating and threatening to court-martial Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired U.S. Navy captain, following his appearance in a video posted last week by several Democratic lawmakers urging U.S. military servicemembers to disobey illegal orders, according to a new statement from the Department of Defense. President Donald Trump has called the lawmakers’ actions “seditious” and “treasonous,” and suggested they should face trial. Kelly said he won’t be “silenced by bullies”…
As Democrats take stock of their electoral losses last year, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville argues in a New York Times op-ed published Monday that Democrats need to abandon the “era of performative woke politics” and instead “embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage” as the “only way out of the abyss”…
Senior BBC leaders addressed questions about the network’s impartiality during a parliamentary committee hearing in London on Monday afternoon. The inquiry comes as the broadcaster faces down the threat of a lawsuit from Trump, who is unhappy with what BBC critics have described as a deceptively edited clip of the president. The BBC is facing further criticism after a former advisor to the British news organization accused it of bias on topics including Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and transgender issues…
Talks between the U.S. and Ukraine on a Ukraine-Russia peace plan are at a “critical moment,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, after high-level negotiations between the two countries over the weekend. A joint statement from the White House and Zelensky’s office, released Sunday night, said the talks were “highly productive” and that “meaningful progress” had been made, after an early draft of the proposed peace deal sparked concerns that it did not demand enough concessions from Moscow. Zelensky has not yet agree to the deal…
Seventeen Hamas terrorists were killed or captured by Israeli forces in eastern Rafah on the IDF’s side of the Gaza ceasefire lines on Sunday, after over 200 of them were trapped there when the ceasefire went into effect…
An ongoing public dispute between Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir about investigations over military failures around Oct. 7 continued on Monday, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reportedly invite the two for a private meeting with the goal of resolving the feud…
The Gaza terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Monday that it had “found” the body of another deceased Israeli hostage, though the group did not publicly indicate if or when it plans to hand over the body — one of three remaining in the Gaza Strip…
A federal judge in New York tossed out separate criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, arguing that Trump’s appointment of the prosecutor in those cases was not valid…
The organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest announced new rules to limit the influence of audience voting, following allegations that Israel meddled in the vote…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
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Keep an eye out in tomorrow’s Jewish Insider for a look at the status of Iran’s nuclear program amid a series of recent reports that have raised questions about whether the Islamic Republic is seeking to rebuild — with Russia’s help — the nuclear sites that sustained extensive damage from June’s U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
We also will be reporting on lawmakers’ reactions to the revelations that a significant share of anti-Israel and antisemitic content on X — on both the far right and far left — is being produced overseas.
And we’ll be talking to ESPN college football commentator Paul Finebaum about his possible interest in running in Alabama’s Senate race, as he discusses how his Jewish upbringing shaped his worldview.
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Legislation that would ban the group has received bipartisan support in both the House and Senate
Among other measures, UCLA will contribute $2.33 million to organizations combating antisemitism on campus
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Royce Hall building on University of California (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, California, USA - May 28, 2023.
The University of California, Los Angeles settled a federal lawsuit this week with Jewish students who alleged that the university permitted antisemitic conduct during the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampments on the campus, according to a settlement agreement shared by the university on Tuesday.
Yitzchok Frankel, then a second-year law student at UCLA, filed suit against the university in June 2024, claiming that he was “harassed and blocked from approaching the encampment by antisemitic activists, all with the assistance of UCLA security.” Two other Jewish UCLA students and a UCLA medical school professor later joined the suit.
According to the settlement agreement, the university will be prohibited from “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty and/or staff” from any UCLA programs or campus areas. Notably, the judgment stated that the prohibition also applies to the exclusion of Jewish UCLA affiliates “based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.”
The agreement will remain in effect for 15 years. It follows a preliminary ruling last August stating that the university must allow Jewish students equal access to campus spaces and events.
“Today’s settlement reflects a critically important goal that we share with the plaintiffs: to foster a safe, secure and inclusive environment for all members of our community and ensure that there is no room for antisemitism anywhere on campus,” University of California Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly said in a statement.
UCLA also agreed to pay each of the plaintiffs $50,000, and will cover $3.6 million of their legal fees.
UCLA will contribute $2.33 million to several organizations fighting antisemitism on college campuses. Recipients include Hillel at UCLA, the Academic Engagement Network, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ Campus Impact Network, Chabad of UCLA, the Jewish Graduate Organization, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus and The Film Collaborative, Inc., which will produce a short film about a former UCLA employee who is a Holocaust survivor.
The university also pledged to give $320,000 to UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism, which was created by UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk in March.
“It seems like it will be a signal to everyone, to not just the Jewish community but to everyone, that what happened and was allowed to happen to Jewish students was wrong, and the university understands it was wrong, and is acknowledging that it wants to fix what was wrong,” UCLA Hillel Executive Director Dan Gold said about the settlement.
In March, the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the case supporting Frankel, the other Jewish students and a Jewish professor who joined him in the suit.
“The president, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Task Force know that every student must be free to attend school without being discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion or national origin,” DOJ senior counsel Leo Terrell, the chair of the federal antisemitism task force, said in March.
The agreement comes as Frenk, who started at the university in January, has stated that countering antisemitism will be a priority of his tenure.
“My position has been that, with all transparency and humility, we need to acknowledge that we have an antisemitism problem in universities. Denying it would be dishonest,” Frenk told Jewish Insider in May.
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